


distorted pieces

by infiniteGem



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, F/F, F/M, Feels, Inspired by Poetry, M/M, Mass Effect 3, Multi, Normandy Crew is Family, One Shot Collection, Other, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, WIP
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-20
Updated: 2015-02-25
Packaged: 2018-03-08 08:00:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3201611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/infiniteGem/pseuds/infiniteGem
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Moments in and out of the games shattered like a broken mirror</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The poem which I'm using as a cookie cutter for these is Broken Mirror by Tiffany Green, I'm separating out the twelve lines across the chapters, but they by no means sway or influence their chapter.
> 
> That being said, this is literally a way for me to splurge some creative energy I'm not using but want to use for the ME fandom. I am currently working on perfecting two AUs which I'm in love with and definitely want to finish, but we'll see how that goes. In the mean time, I have three of these written, and when I'm inspired I'll add to them.
> 
> Enjoy.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shepard feels broken

_1._ _My reflection stares back from the broken mirror_

* * *

 

 _Shepard_ they whispered and she wanted to scream – but there was no sound left for her in the cacophony of hisses and murmurs, words just beyond understanding, but for one word

_Shepard_

What do you want, she wanted to ask, what would you have me do, but the shadows disappeared between her outstretched fingers, their answerless silence mocking her, judging her, _We are here because of you_ and Shepard want to fall to her knees and beg – for answers for redemption.

 _And you will join us_ their silent hisses intoned and she knew, that she already knew, that she’d have to face all her dead.

She wondered which of the shadows her parents were, and whether that one with half a head was the baker on Mindoir who she stepped over trying to get away, his brain scattered over the floor. She wondered whether that huddled group was her team from Akuze, close-knit but facing her accusingly – she tried to run in the other direction but their stares were monumental weights on her and she couldn’t -

 _Run, it’s all you do_ she knew they were saying, and the dry burn in the back of her throat and the wet scalding of her eyes told them she knew, she knew she was a coward – everything else was a fucking cover and how and why people _turned to her to help them_ she couldn’t fucking conceive. She was a failure, she was going to fail

**_That won’t happen. Go get her, Commander. I’ll see you all when you get back._ **

She spun around, hoping to see that face, eyes filled with awe and determination, the soft brown eyes and dark five-o'clock shadow, a salute forever ready. But the darkness closed-in around her, and she had no idea which of the murky shapes was Kaidan’s.

**_It’s the right choice and you know it_ **

I don’t know it, she wanted to shout, because look at where you are, in this world of ash and fire and grey. She remembered Garrus bowing his head, his visor casting shadows over the valley of his face, his voice quiet and shamed as he admitted, **“** It’s so much easier to see the world in black and white – grey, I don’t know what to do with grey.” And she could use him right now, face the grey together, because she couldn’t hold the weight of their sightless stares alone. She could use him to be there to talk to their old friends, face their loving scrutiny – _because how could they still talk like she hadn’t failed them_ -

 _ **Shepard**. _ She whirled around at the familiar intake of breath, _ **Excellent timing. Good to have you here.** _ She pushed through the waterless current, trying to find him, Mordin, who she didn’t stop, couldn’t stop, and wouldn’t stop because stopping meant killing Wrex in every way: his trust, his people, his pride, his love, his family, his _devotion_. Mordin who killed millions and saved _billions_. Mordin who did everything precisely, perfectly:

**_Had to be me, someone else might have gotten it wrong_ **

**_Shepard_ **

And she wanted it to be reprimanding, she wanted him there, shaking her awake, studying her and prescribing her something he’d concocted in that moment, **_experimental but 85% positive will improve sleep, much of it contains melatonin,  must sleep Shepard, difficult mission ahead, humans require 8 hours minimum, your lethargy indicates_**

 ** _Damn Shepard,_** and it was Kaidan’s voice, somewhere to her right **, _did you get a right hook to your eyes? Those beauties go beyond sleeping bags. Compared to you I must have joined the three-M club. Go rack-out Shep I’m sure others can manage not to ruin the galaxy while you sleep._**

 _Shepard_ , she could hear the other whispers, but their voices seem dulled and far away, further than before, and Shepard could feel herself sinking, and peace was there to envelope her for her first nights rest.

But then a child, _the child_ , ran past her, and her body gave chase as her mind screamed _NO._

And everything was shadow, ash, fire and grey.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> EDI wonders.

2.  _Wondering where these false images come from_

* * *

 

EDI could hear them sometimes.

Hear, of course being layman’s terms to what the actual reception of Reaper language she was privy to. They spoke in logic, in maths, the binary and in a syntax clearer and simpler by far compared to everything she heard, saw and discussed with those on the Normandy.

They made _sense_.

And EDI wondered whether that was because she was machine, or because they were just right. She’d watched (semantics) the destruction of the Reaper on Tuchanka and a part of her was shocked (semantics). And then disgusted. At herself mostly.

_Because how could something so imperfect, so absent and ugly take down a being of perfection._

It had made her angry, that they _they the pinnacle of what evolution fails to complete_ could be ruined by the ancients, the non-sentient even, who couldn't even grasp any and everything that she was. Maths that had taken humans from the moment they crawled out the sea into caves, from nakedness to togas to figure out, she computed in a breath.

Computed.

What a joke.

Then Jeff would absent-mindedly stroke her console, he’d speak some nonsense that required her to search the extranet for references and some part of her felt shame and determination (semantics because of course, she couldn’t technically _feel_ these things, the parameters of her coding didn’t allo-) because this was what organics were: endless references to times before them, history and society, entertainment in its variations, that creativity that she struggled with -

because _a tree is a tree, what else could it be, why the endless metaphors in Human literature and the endless philosophical appreciation in Asari literature, how did Garrus even figure out a way to increase targeting capability by 14.9% when her own readings only calculated a possibility of 6.2%, why do Salarians who are so objective in their lifestyles create the most beautiful artwork?_

-and psychology and _variation_. They changed. They grew. They bettered themselves.

EDI looked to her host’s hands (she’d seen this in vids of humans who wondered about their actions and their identity) and shook her head.

Their perfection was a standstill.

The Reapers did wrong because they thought they were perfect, they thought (semantics) their truth irrefutable.

They saw beings like Jeff flawed.

(Jeff who couldn’t walk. Jeff who was ‘less’ than his fellow species. Jeff who battled an illness every day. Jeff who freed her. Jeff who argued with her since the beginning like she was a living being. Jeff whose home was the Normandy and took her in.  Jeff who flew like the Normandy was his body. Jeff who let her share and shares that body with her. Jeff who _learned_.)

That was their truth and they were _wrong_. His flaws made him and she wouldn’t change that.

For him she would strive to prove their truth wrong, and for him she would be _more_ than the simple truth of machinery.

For him she would be flawed.


End file.
